Space Marine 2 already earned 1.8x more than all other Warhammer 40k games combined last year, new estimates show

Joost van Dreunen, industry analyst and founder of new research firm Aldora, has shared some interesting data on the recently launched Warhammer 40k: Space Marine 2. He compared its estimated revenue to other games based on this IP.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2

In his SuperJoost newsletter, van Dreunen estimates Warhammer 40k: Space Marine 2’s revenue at $202 million. This may be fairly accurate, given the game’s worldwide success, with 2 million copies sold already, chart-topping positions, and over 225k concurrent players on Steam alone.

Going deeper into the numbers, van Dreunen looked at the performance of other Warhammer 40k titles. It appears that they generated $108 million combined in 2023 (aggregate data from AppMagic, VG Insights, and Aldora) — $41 million on mobile and $67 million across PC and console.

Revenue for each game remains undisclosed, but van Dreunen previously calculated that there were 29 Warhammer 40k games on sale prior to the launch of Space Marine 2. He only mentioned that the best-performing project was Snowprint Studios’ mobile strategy game Tacticus, which made $35 million before platform fees and taxes.

This means that despite only being available in the market for a week (since its Advanced Access launch on September 5), Space Marine 2 is already 1.87x ahead of 2023 revenue for all other Warhammer 40k titles.

The success of Saber Interactive’s third-person shooter could drive Games Workshop’s video game expansion, especially as the company has also started taking its licensing business more seriously.

Here’s what van Dreunen has to say about it: “A few years ago, when I spoke with them, they were clear that licensing wasn’t a key part of their business model, and they had no plans to change that. Fast forward to today, and their latest annual report tells a different story.”

In FY23/24, Games Workshop posted a 22% increase in licensing revenue, which reached $40.3 million. The division’s operating profit was $35 million (+22.7%).

It is worth noting that GWS competitors have been trying to make profits from video games for a while now. Last year, royalties from Baldur’s Gate 3 brought in $90 million for Hasbro, not to mention the even bigger success of Monopoly Go. For the current fiscal year, the company expects to make $105 million in licensing revenue from Scopely’s mobile hit, with another $30 million coming from BG3.